What I am reading: Obviously my Bible but also a book called Captivating. It is really good. It is a book all women should read. It is about beauty, true beauty and so much more.

For dinner tonight: homemade burritos. I have the beans on the stove right now. I will add some cheese and BAM! Easy dinner for a busy day, done!! Oh yeah, and rice for a side.

What I am feeling: Loved by my family and friends. My daughter wrote me the sweetest note on facebook…on my page, not just a message. It is so sweet. I cried at the love she shared that she has for me. She is so incredibly wonderful. My middle daughter made so many plans to make my day amazing yesterday. She made me a chocolate cherry upside down cake! She has such a giving heart. She is a blessing. My youngest daughter drew me pictures and bought me brownies. She is so cute!! My son was well behaved and bought me my favorite candy. My husband took us all out for dinner and bought me flowers. My friends showered me with such amazing compliments and blessings. It was a birthday that was special. I feel loved.

What I am making: I just bought some material to make a new skirt. We will see how that turns out. It is really pretty but that means I will have to make some kind of top to go with it too!! If I have enough left over fabric I think I will make some pretty dish towels…hmmm? I am getting the crafty bug!!

School stuff: We are studying Margret Sanger and her reasons for doing what she did to promote birth control and abortion. Had nothing to do with women’s rights pretty much just to get rid of the part of the population that she felt was unacceptable. Hitler in a skirt and sneaky. I had the kids watch Birth Control: Where do we go from here? the dvd. I think it was good for them to hear this information from many sources. Do I hear reports? Oh yes I do!!

Our Bible verse this week: Give thanks to the Lord for He is good…His love endures forever! Psalm 136:1

It was their 4th annual MESA Engineering Night. It was to bring elementary, middle school students and their families to the Bourns College of Engineering to showcase the field of engineering. Through interactive displays, hands on exhibits and competitions the kids got a true appreciation for engineering and how fun it can be!

It was outside and freezing but so worth it!!

I know this looks like a ball, but actually the college kids had dry ice that was pumping out the cold air through a tube that they had dipped in dish detergent. The air would form these little “balls” that would then fall and the kids would try to touch.

Neat huh?

Yup the kids loved it!!

This was a cute table too.

Here the boys put together oobleck.

You know the corn starch and water mixture that is a solid and a liquid.

The boys here put some of the mixture on a speaker so it would dance to the music.

They showed the kids how it would dance to the music. It would bounce in the air as a solid but then as soon as it hit the speaker again it would become a liquid.

Then at the next table, the girls made a type of quick sand.

I love that the girls gave out gloves to wear for their experiment, because it was messy!!

You know that is why Belle loved it!!

Here was her favorite station to visit though…

The kids were given 3 marshmallows and a ton of dry spaghetti noodles to see how big of a creation they could make.

The biggest creation would win a paper airplane.

So this was for fun not the prize.

We have done this at home, but never with heavy big marshmallows and spaghetti!

All the kids loved this!

Here she is with some of her friends trying different creations.

Rebecca helped our other friend with hers :)

Belle was such the smarty that she broke one marshmallow apart to hide some of it in her mouth!!

Silly girl!!

It was a great night! It was even better because we got to share it with friends. The only sad thing was the friend who told us about the night got snowed in at her home and could not share it with the rest of us!! We missed you Marie!!

My husband and I are talking about putting our son into an NJROTC program.

Okay, honestly it is more that I think he should be in one.

I know we have at our local high school a program…. hmmmm.

I know my son is really into the military, so it is not like I am choosing this to punish him. He would be around other kids who have the same interests as him. It really is great for discipline, respect, responsibility, patriotism, leadership, physical fitness and preps you for actual duty. Actually I used to go to a school that was NJROTC so maybe I am a bit prejudiced as to the benefits of attending.

Really this program sounds perfect for our son. The problem is that you usually have to attend the school that is providing the NJROTC program. This means public school. There is one private school that is offering NJROTC program (the school that I went to) and we are looking at $700 a month. Ouch.

I admit it. I think kids in the military uniform look sharp. They make me smile when they march in formation. I enjoy watching the drill teams. I love the pride of the color guard. I really think ROTC programs are good.

$700 a month though?? We are a single income family that homeschools. We are on a budget as it is. $700 is more than huge to us. No Boy Scouts is not the same thing. I am not putting him in that organization. It is fine for some boys but not mine.

He can be such a challenge, yet the Lord has entrusted me with the task of bringing him up. Training him, with my husband, to be a good and rightious man who has the Word of the Lord written in his heart to raise his family and cherish his wife in a way pleasing to God.

I am not being flippant.

I truly am thankful.

It has taken me a while to get here…but here I will stay.

I used to look at other families and see how perfect their families seemed. Their families would all come to church looking amazing, everyone smiling and clean. Their children seemed excited at the opportunity to get up early and go to church to hear the Word. Then to hear that everything at home was just as bubbly, fresh and lovely was even more, shall I say depressing. Their homes were clean, the children loved to do school, learning was easy for their children, chores were not a problem, fighting amongst siblings rarely happened, finances were always in the green and had enough for fancy vacations (sometimes even with friends!), romance was abounding, date night was never canceled due to colds, and the list went on and on. I felt like I was the person living with all the robot women in Stepford.

I was sure I was the only family that things went wonky. My kitchen was clean, never. My children loved school only on days off. There have been a collection of times I was not sure that the bills would not be covered. My kiddos definitely did not always get along. Vacations? We have had a handful and they were never on a cruise, in a resort, or just me and my husband. My girls have all gotten, at some point and time, gum stuck in their hair. We have had the days where you bring in the groceries, the bag breaks and their are raw eggs and flour all over the floor. That is just my family.

So having a son who could be cantankerous should not flabbergast me…

BUT IT DOES!!!

How did this happen?

I blamed myself in every way possible. It had to be my fault. I did not want anyone to know that I had a child that was not “perfect”. How embarrassing!

I would pray to God asking Him “what is wrong with this boy? Why will he not do what I want him to do?”

Ugh.

Again the prayers up to the Lord, “God, this boy you gave me…um he is making me angry and I do not want to be. Fix him please!!”

For years this was how I prayed, I figured that my “gift” from God here was my battle and He wanted my son to learn something and until he did, I was stuck with this behavior. During this time we did find out that my son has a bit of a hearing problem and that he is an audio learner not a book learner. Yeah, that would be a problem for school. Needs one on one time in abundance to understand things. That would make me angry too. Thought that would solve the anger issue. Ummm…nope. He has testosterone too. So still a bit of anger to work through. So I continued to pray “God, fix him! He is breaking my heart! Fix him, I hate seeing him so sad and angry.”

My problem was that I kept praying for God to fix my son.

I would pray for guidance with raising him. I would pray for patience when he would misbehave. I would pray for knowledge as to how to speak to him.

What I forgot to ask God for was for the Lord to fix ME.

I made this all about my son conforming to what I wanted him to be.

I wanted a boy who was respectful, polite, clean and charming now.

I wanted a Pastor son.

Ummm…he does not want to be.

He loves guns, the military and aggression.

He is not an evil boy that runs around hurting little animals for fun. He just loves all that real boy stuff. I had no personal reference to “real boy” before my son. Yes I babysat, but those little ones you see in spurts not lived with 24/7. So when my son loved to play and get all sweaty and dirty as a little one, I loved it! It was new and special. When I saw him play soccer and get aggressive out there on the field. I had to learn to love that…and I did. I know I love seeing it in sports on tv or in the stadiums. Its just hard to watch that with your boy as he grows up to be a man. He was out there shoving and kicking the ball with the best of them…being a male.

Now the Lord is revealing to me that this is another time of learning for myself. He is the teen boy now. He is into teen boy stuff. He really loves the military. He loves weapons. He knows so much about them. I have no idea how he knows all this stuff. He is pretty good with strategy. He can call battle plans and win games. He is actually really good at this stuff. Knowing his Bible verse for the week? Not as good.

The Lord, through my wonderful new friend from Russia, has shown me that God needs soldiers too. Michael the Archangel is a great warrior. There have been many times God has called for wars in the bible. Who carried these out? The pastors? No. The strong, aggressive soldiers who love the Lord go out and protect the women and children. I am learning that this may be my son. A warrior for the Lord.

This does make me happy. I am finding that I have a much easier time praying for the grace to respond calmly to the strong willed emotions I am encountering. (I also pray to help him find a positive outlet for his energy.) When I pray for myself to change I am noticing that I am finding the peace that I was requesting of my son. Interesting. It was me all along that needed the prayer! I needed to change to handle the changes in my son. He does still need prayer and understanding about all the crazy hormones raging through him that can just erupt at the strangest moments. He does still need to take responsibility for his choices and actions. I am not giving him a free pass at all. It is just that now, through the grace of God, being able to see my part of this teenage puzzle and what I can learn from it through Him.

So I will say again to the Lord, thank you for my angry child! He is such a blessing!!

“You will never have this day
with your child again.
Tomorrow they’ll be a little
older than they we’re today.
This day is a gift.
Breathe and notice.
Smell and touch them;
study their faces
and little feet and pay attention.
RELISH THE CHARMS
of THE PRESENT.